EXHIBITS
A Century of Service: Logan Rotary at 100: Going Global: The Changing Nature of Service
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Going Global: The Changing Nature of Service
For most of Logan Rotary’s history, the club looked inward for service opportunities. Jim Jarvis states that when he joined in 1963, “We were more or less a local club. We were not so much involved worldwide as an organization.”[1] The club largely worked on improving public spaces and fostering fellowship among its members. However, as technology made the world a smaller place, Logan Rotary began looking outward for service projects. In 1983, the club raised funds to provide eye care in Pune, India.[2] Logan Rotary, as mentioned earlier, also contributed a significant amount of money towards the PolioPlus project. However, in the early 2000s, international service really took off within the club.
International Service
In 2003, Logan Rotarian Fred Berthrong had a chance meeting with Sally Montaigne, a former staffer for President John F. Kennedy, at a Rotary training in Houston, Texas. Through Sally, the Logan Rotary Club became involved with the Douglas, Arizona-based foundation, Wings of Angels, an organization that provides housing for impoverished individuals with disabilities. Through this connection, Logan Rotary arranged an annual service trip to Agua Prieta, Mexico, a poverty-stricken border town, with a crew of college “Rotaractors” in tow.[3] Once there, the volunteers shouldered their tools and built a home for a family in need.[4] Fred explained that the Wings of Angels Foundation, the Agua Prieta Rotary Club, and their local contractor, Marcelino Enriquez, prepared the required materials, making it possible for the hard-working Rotarians and Rotaractors to construct a handicap-accessible home in about a week. This project, now in its sixteenth year, provided a springboard for the club’s other international projects.
One Logan Rotarian, Ben Jarvis, owner of Logan’s Culligan Water Conditioning, is an expert in water purification. This expertise manifested itself as another international project to provide clean drinking water for an indigenous group of Peruvians known as the Selva. This project began around 2006, and as recently as 2015, Logan Rotary members journeyed to Peru to observe the water filtration tower they constructed in conjunction with a Peruvian Rotary Club. Logan Rotary also provided goods and medical services on their journey.[5] Looking to the future, the club is planning a new project to help the Rotary Club of Guanajuato, Mexico, in establishing an aquaponics facility (a form of sustainable water-based agriculture) in the coming years.
Global Grants Explained
In addition to the passions and interests of members, a significant factor in the growth of international service stems from the global grant system implemented by the Rotary Foundation, the financial side of RI. The Foundation functions by investing donated funds from clubs around the globe, operating off the generated interest, and then awarding global grants from the donation pool. As Fred Berthrong explained for the recently approved aquaponics program:
That money [$10,000 provided by the District] is matched 100% from the Foundation, so then we have $20,000. Then the District down in Mexico contributed $1,000 and that is matched 100%. Now we are at [$22,000]. The Logan Club is putting up $3,000 and from four other clubs in our District, we have another $6,000.[6]
Through the Foundation and the global grants program, the Logan club receives $36,000 for a project by only investing $3,000. Because of the Rotary Foundation, large-scale international projects have taken on a new level of feasibility for ambitious Rotarians looking to engage in service on a global scale.
Local Projects
